St Helens overcame an unexpected attack of opening night jitters to emerge deceptively comfortable winners from the first match at this wonderful new addition to the Super League landscape. A crowd of more than 15,000 braved the cold as one of the most successful clubs of the modern era celebrated having a stadium worthy of the club's glorious past and present, but they witnessed anything but a procession as an excellent Salford performance produced a rousing contest.

The visitors were good value for a 10-4 half-time lead, but Saints hit back, as they did so many times at Knowsley Road, with six unanswered second-half tries as their young half-backs Jonny Lomax and Lee Gaskell grew in confidence.

St Helens put on an excellent show for the first match at their new £30m stadium, with marching bands, a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring Alex Murphy, Kel Coslett and Keiron Cunningham – three of the club's all-time greats – and a guard of honour for a fourth, the South African wing Tom van Vollenhoven, to carry the match ball to the centre spot.

"Tom was born in Bethlehem, which is appropriate for Saints' first game in a halo-shaped stadium," pointed out Eamonn McManus, the club chairman without whom this night would not have happened. However even Van Vollenhoven could not control what happened once the match kicked off.

Salford, who had lost to Castleford in a blizzard in the opening fixture at their own new stadium last Saturday to reinforce predictions that they will struggle again this season, turned out to be far less accommodating opening night guests than anyone had expected.

Playing in bright green, the City Reds took a 4-0 lead with a well-worked left-wing move in the ninth minute that gave Jodie Broughton the honour of scoring the first Super League try on the ground. And when Ashley Gibson touched down Danny Williams's quick-thinking kick ahead, Daniel Holdsworth's conversion produced a downright shocking 10-0 scoreline for the home supporters on their opening night.

That stung Saints into a response, although their first try at Langtree Park will not live long in the memory – save perhaps for its lack of quality. Sia Soliola, a former New Zealand centre now playing in the second-row, took a short pass from James Roby on the sixth tackle but seemed to have been held up over the line by determined Salford defence, only for the video referee, Ian Smith, to award him the benefit of a considerable doubt that he had touched the ball down.

Even then, Tommy Makinson's conversion attempt rebounded off the post, and Salford were unlucky not to add a third try before half-time when Mr Smith ruled that Andrew Dixon had prevented Gibson from touching the ball down in a terrific cover tackle.

Instead Saints, having visibly stepped up their intensity, pulled level 10 minutes into the second half. It was Roby, the England hooker who is filling in as captain with Paul Wellens still recovering from an off-season operation, who led from the front, chasing his own grubber kick despite Salford's efforts to obstruct him, and throwing himself at the ball to touch it down when it rebounded from the base of the padded post.

They took the lead for the first time four minutes later when Lomax and Gaskell combined to send Francis Meli over, and after that the procession finally began as Jon Wilkin surged through the tiring Salford defence, Andrew Dixon collected a couple and Anthony Laffranchi one.